LONDON (NEWSnet/AP) — U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has said he will introduce measures to reverse the convictions of more than 900 Post Office branch managers wrongly accused years ago of theft or fraud.

The announcement Wednesday follows a television docudrama on the status of numerous former postmasters who have spent years trying to recover from the scandal.

A faulty computer system is now believed to be the cause.

“This is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in our nation’s history,” Sunak said. “People who worked hard to serve their communities had their lives and their reputations destroyed through absolutely no fault of their own. The victims must get justice and compensation.”

Lawmakers said they would provide financial compensation to those who had been convicted. Some also called for bringing those to justice who were responsible for the wrongdoing.

After the Post Office rolled out the Horizon information technology system, developed by Japanese company Fujitsu, in 1999 to automate sales accounting, local Post Office managers began finding unexplained losses they were responsible to cover.

The state-owned Post Office maintained Horizon was reliable and accused branch managers of dishonesty. Between 2000 and 2014, around 900 postal workers were wrongly accused of theft, fraud and false accounting, with some convicted and imprisoned and others forced into bankruptcy. Some killed themselves or attempted suicide. Others said that their marriages fell apart and reported becoming community pariahs.

In total, more than 2,000 people were affected by the scandal.

The Post Office is state-owned with independent franchise operators. Branch owners and employees typically lived in the communities where they operated, and many became outcasts or could no longer find work after accused of stealing.

A group of postal workers took legal action against the Post Office in 2016. Three years later, the High Court in London ruled that Horizon program contained “bugs, errors and defects” and that the Post Office “knew there were serious issues about the reliability” of the system.

“Failures of investigation and disclosure were so egregious as to make the prosecution of any of the ‘Horizon cases’ an affront to the conscience of the court,” Justice Timothy Holroyde said.

To date, only 95 convictions have been overturned, Post Office minister Kevin Hollinrake said.

A recent ITV show, “Mr. Bates vs the Post Office,” told the story of branch manager Alan Bates, played by Toby Jones, who has spent nearly two decades trying to expose the scandal and exonerate his peers. Despite hundreds of news stories over the years about court hearings and an ongoing public inquiry, that show rapidly galvanized support for victims of the injustice.

Hollinrake said the public inquiry is intended to identify the organizations and individuals responsible for the scandal.

In the meantime, more than 1 million people signed an online petition calling for former Post Office chief executive Paula Vennells to lose her Commander of the Order of the British Empire title she received in 2018. By the end of Tuesday, she said she would relinquish the honor.

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